


While the Tea Boils

by sinivalkoista



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Childhood Memories, Chronicles of Narnia References, Death from Old Age, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Memories, Minor Caspian/Susan Pevensie, Old Age, Once a King or Queen of Narnia Always a King or Queen of Narnia, POV Susan Pevensie, Post-Canon Fix-It, Repressed Memories, Sad with a Happy Ending, Susan Pevensie Deserved Better, Susan Pevensie-centric, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27422635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinivalkoista/pseuds/sinivalkoista
Summary: While the tea boils, an old Susan Pevensie ponders if the childish games of her youth may have been real, after all.
Relationships: Aslan & Susan Pevensie, Caspian/Susan Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	While the Tea Boils

TRAIN CRASH KILLS TWENTY

With wrinkled, shaking hands, Susan Pevensie set down the newspaper. Even though she had seen similar headlines over the years, it reminded her of another crash that had killed her three siblings and an old family friend.

It reminded her of things she did not like to think about.

Goodness gracious, she thought. 

Sometimes, it was rather hard to believe that over forty years had passed since she first received the news at university that her brothers and sisters were killed in such a train crash.

Forty years was a long time to spend without people you expected at one point to share a lifetime with.

When they were children, they used to play  _ such _ games together, she remembered with a smile. The four of them used to pretend that they were queens and kings ruling together over one country. 

She had been Queen Susan the Gentle of Narnia.

To herself, she smiled slightly.

Such a long time ago that had been. For years up until the car crash, Edmund, Peter, and Lucy had maintained the charade with each other, recounting the tales of glorious hunts or adventures they had been on. Dear old Eustace and Jill used to play the game too far past the age they should have.

Shakily, Susan stood to go put the kettle on the stove. She was expecting the neighbor over for tea.

In Narnia, there had been many a tea, ball, dance, or other social affair. Dear Lucy had loved to invite Mr. Tumnus over for tea.

As she made sure the kettle was filled with plenty of water, Susan shook herself. Those games had ended for her over forty years ago, but sometimes she still felt as though she could feel the dresses she had worn and the quiver strapped across her back.

Ha. Now  _ she  _ was the foolish one, still dreaming about childish games.

As the tea water began to heat up, a sense of nostalgia stole over Susan. Strangely, even though she attempted to live by logic, she  _ wished  _ the games of their youth had been real.

When  _ had  _ she decided she no longer believed in Narnia and Aslan and all of it?

Had she just woken up one morning, looked over her arrangement of cosmetic containers, and decided that it was more fun powdering her face to look like a queen than to  _ be  _ a queen?

Susan was always considered the beauty of the family. When she was in her twenties, she had been invited to hundreds of social events every year, and she took  _ pride  _ in that.

Sweet Lucy had always been ever loving but ever envious of her looks until one “trip” to Narnia, she remembered.

Well, now there was nothing for Lucy to be jealous of. Years had stripped away Susan’s prided beauty, and now she resembled nothing more than a wrinkled, over-boiled potato with white corn silk for hair.

It would have been nice to grow old with her brothers and sisters.

She did, once.

Sometimes, it was strange. She felt as though she were living a second life. But that wasn’t possible.

“You’re turning soft,” she muttered to herself as the water started to boil, wiping her eyes, which were strangely wet, with the back of her hand. “Awfully soft. Logically…” She took the kettle off the stove (it took a great deal more effort than it used to, but she managed fine without any help from the empty room) and poured herself a cup. Her neighbor was late. “Logically, you should be over this by now, Susan,” she lectured herself.

After so many years, she almost  _ wished  _ that Narnia were real and that she could go back and relive all of those moments with her brothers and sister. That she could bury her head in Aslan’s mane and cry over him.

She remembered the night that Aslan had died on their first trip to Narnia. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see the White Witch slamming the knife down into his fur as though it had actually happened.

She could see and hear the Stone Table breaking and cracking in two. She could hear the sounds of battles clashing in her ears and the sound of Lucy’s laughter whenever they splashed each other with water.

On the first trip, neither she nor Peter nor Edmund believed they belonged in Narnia. Only Lucy had been confident of the fact.

Ha. “Belonged.” As though it existed in the first place…

Before, after she had finished with pretending, thoughts like these had been common and said  _ scornfully  _ to herself.

Now, Susan felt them with a touch of remorse. If only she could trade all of those moments for more time with Lucy and Edmund and Peter.

“Logically,” she began again as she poured her cream into her teacup. A teardrop ran down her nose and into the cup.

To imagine that a children’s game was affecting her like this all these years.

Carefully, she picked up the teacup with a saucer beneath it and lifted it up with the intention of taking a sip. Before her very eyes, the cream in the cup morphed into the shape of a familiar lion’s head.

The teacup fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand shards.

“Dear me.” Her body was shaking like a leaf in London’s foggy winds.

The sound of her slippers crunching against the porcelain and her heavy breathing as she stepped over the broken pieces barely filled the empty apartment.

Her eyes must have been tricking her. Old memories must have stirred up something in her slipping mind, for that lion looked very, very familiar to her aged soul. Somehow, remembering the lion she once knew as Aslan became more important to her than tea or the broken teacup on her floor.

Just how far had she fallen? How far had she gone? How close was she?

She sat down in her rocking chair, which creaked underneath her minimal weight. It gave her something solid for her bones.

At that moment, none of it really mattered to her anymore, not the teacup or the late neighbor. For a while, she sat and rocked in her chair, her mind far, far away on adventures with her younger self, Edmund, Peter, Lucy, Prince Caspian, Reepicheep, and many, many more.

“I believe in Narnia,” she whispered as her head finally drifted off to sleep as the exhausting trek down her memories pulled her away down a lazy stream.

When she woke up, she was in a country far greener and beautiful before.


End file.
